Bounce, Ruth
Boris Johnson’s can-do performance and depth of subject knowledge in the Commons last week left me wondering where this guy’s been for the last 20 years.
His first, massive test is Brexit. But even before he arrives in Scotland, his words and actions last week – including £100 million to police, a filleting of Ian Blackford, and David Mundell’s replacement signalled that things will change in Scotland.
If he succeeds, the “Scexit is inevitable” bubble that has seeped unfathomably into so many commentators’ and separatists’ brains can be easily burst with a brutal thorn of reality based on 12 dismal SNP years, suspect economic case and, after an incredible run of failed, pulled and unpopular policies, Nicola Sturgeon’s rolling coronation as Scotland’s Queen Mcmidas in Reverse (for all you Hollies fans out there).
But he needs allies. To win back Scotland for the Scottish people means winning Holyrood 2021. His own party needs to start looking like they actually want to, and can, run Scotland. One million Scots voted for Brexit, 230,000 more than voted Conservative in 2017 – enough to win a majority in coalition with the Lib Dems or Labour. I hope Ruth Davidson gets over her friend David Mundell’s sacking and starts to work out how she can leverage the Boris bounce and his plans for Scotland alongside her own election-winning policies. Lib Dems and Labour need to follow this lead, start believing the SNP can be beaten, and tell us what they will do to burst this divisive, incompetent, sour SNP bubble. ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven
Victor Clements (Letters, 26 July) – in 2014 the referendum was about whether to remain in the UK and the EU, or go out on our own. A referendum now or in the near future would be between remaining withtheukor,hopefully,theeu.
I voted to stay in both unions, but now in the case of a choice between the UK and the EU, I would vote differently, as would many others.
JENNY MARTIN Dudley Avenue, Edinburgh
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George Morton (Letters,29 July) asserts that supporters of Scottish independence are unwilling to learn even a smattering of important European languages.
This is not my experience and can hardly apply to those from Germany, Poland and elsewhere in Europe who have settled in Scotland and support Scottish independence. While I do not claim fluency, I have given academic lectures in English, French and Norwegian and can do my shopping and ask the way in some other languages.
While I should not generalise, I have observed many others fitting into communities and doing their best to use local languages, not only in Europe. Even a slight knowledge of the Scots and Gaelic languages can be helpful in being able to communicate elsewhere. The world is much larger than Europe and has many ways of speaking.
DAVID STEVENSON Blacket Place, Edinburgh On TV, over the weekend, Jeremy Corbyn stated that “we will do everything to prevent a no-deal Brexit.’’
Presumably his idea of “everything’’ did not include voting for Theresa May’s proposals, against which he led his party several times. Instead he chose to do what he always does, posture, whatever the cost to the country, and hold another march perhaps. If Mr Corbyn had faced down his Momentum puppet masters and he and his MPS had helped pass a reasonable resolution to the Brexit crisis, none of the present agony would have occurred.
ALEXANDER MCKAY New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh
The UK built its power on two principles – keep Britain united and the European continent divided – but Brexit has succeededindoingtheopposite.
At home it has fractured both Tory and Labour parties while the Brexit Party, if it ever got into power, would also split. The Faragistas tend to be ultrathatcherites seeking to create a free-market, neoliberal Britain nearer the US model than the EU. But the mass of Leave voters in the rural backwaters and industrial graveyards of England and Wales want more, not less, state intervention.
Economicdisastermayloom but for Leavers it’s not the be all and end all. Politically, Brexit has already produced in Great Britain an irreversible disintegration which cannot be concealed whether we’re inside or outside the EU.
JOHN CAMERON Howard Place, St Andrews